First net thrust by a Goddard liquid fuel rocket. - .
Nation: USA.
Related Persons: Goddard.
Returning to the simple pressure feeding of the liquid propellants, to reduce weight, Goddard obtained in the Clark University Physical Laboratories a 24-sec test in which the lift was great enough to raise the rocket the last half of the run..

A3 launch - .
Nation: Germany.
Related Persons: von Braun.
Apogee: 0.10 km (0.06 mi). Range: 0.30 km (0.19 mi). Second launch of an A3. Same result as the first - the rocket made a quarter turn after launch, then reached only 100 m before the parachute jettisoned and the missile crashed into the sea a short distance from the launch stand..

RS-12 was launched from AMR at 1946 hours EST. The flight was successful. The actual range was 144.79 nm; .31 nm over; and 200 meters right of the intended impact point, The primary test objective was to test the complete guidance system. This was the first successful flight with the inertial guidance system. Missed aimpoint by 228,800 m.

On 6 December 1957 an agreement was signed to license production of the R-2 to China. A huge team of Russian rocket engineers and technicians went to Beijing to set up the production line. This rocket provided the technological base for the subsequent Chinese rocket programs.

1957 December 6 - .

Death of Robert Albert Charles Esnault-Peltrie - .
Nation: France.
Related Persons: Esnault-Pelterie.
French engineer. Pioneering spaceflight theoretician. French rocketry and spaceflight pioneer. A leading advocate of space travel, his speeches and writings created only limited enthusiasm for rocketry in France prior to WW2..

The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board Ad Hoc Committee on Space Technology recommended, because "Sputnik and the Russian ICBM capability have created a national emergency, " acceleration of specific military programs and a vigorous space program with the immediate goal of landings on the moon. (Rpt, SAB Ad Hoc Committee on Space Technology, 6 Dec 57.)

Failed to reach moon; provided radiation data. Pioneer III, the third U.S.-IGY intended lunar probe under the direction of NASA with the Army acting as executive agent, was launched from the Atlantic Missile Range by a Juno II rocket. The primary objective, to place the 12.95 pound scientific payload in the vicinity of the moon, failed. Pioneer III reached an altitude of approximately 70,000 miles and revealed that the earth's radiation belt comprised at least two distinct bands.

The initial plan for transferring the Army Ballistic Missile Agency and Saturn to NASA was drafted. It was submitted to President Dwight D. Eisenhower on December 1 1 and was signed by Secretary of the Army Wilber M. Brucker and Secretary of the Air Force James H. Douglas on December 16 and by NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan on December 17.

D. Brainerd Holmes, NASA Director of Manned Space Flight, outlined the preliminary project development plan for the Mercury Mark II program in a memorandum to NASA Associate Administrator Robert C. Seamans, Jr. The primary objective of the program was to develop rendezvous techniques; important secondary objectives were long-duration flights, controlled land recovery, and astronaut training. The development of rendezvous capability, Holmes stated, was essential:

It offered the possibility of accomplishing a manned lunar landing earlier than by direct ascent.

The lunar landing maneuver would require the development of rendezvous techniques regardless of the operational mode selected for the lunar mission.

Rendezvous and docking would be necessary to the Apollo orbiting laboratory missions planned for the 1965-1970 period.

The plan was approved by Seamans on December 7. The Mercury Mark II program was renamed "Gemini" on January 3, 1962.

The third NATO operational control Combat Training Launch was fired from AMR at 1737 hours and 24 seconds EST to a prescribed range of 1,516 nm. The missile was well constrained to the intended flight path and within accuracy requirements of the Jupiter system. The missile impacted in the target area and all missions assigned to this test were successfully accomplished.

Titan II flight N-11, the eighth in a series being conducted by the Air Force to develop the weapon system, was launched from Cape Canaveral. It carried a design change intended to reduce the amplitude of longitudinal oscillations which had appeared during first stage operation on all seven previous Titan II flights. This phenomenon, which subsequently became known as POGO, generated g-forces as high as nine in the first stage and over three at the position on the missile corresponding to the location of the spacecraft on the Gemini launch vehicle. Fearing the potentially adverse effect on astronaut performance of such superimposed g-forces, NASA established 0.25g at 11 cycles per second as the maximum level tolerable for Gemini flights. As a first try at solving the POGO problem, Titan II N-11 carried standpipes in each leg of the stage I oxidizer feed lines to interrupt the coupling between the missile's structure and its propulsion system. This coupling was presumed to be the cause of the instability. Postflight analysis, however, revealed that the POGO fix was unsuccessful; longitudinal oscillation had actually been multiplied by a factor of two.

Kamanin notes the Luna 8 mission, which will attempt the first soft landing on the moon the next day, and the launch of Gemini 7, which is to set a new space endurance record and make the first rendezvous in space. The Americans are clearly pulling well ahead of the Soviet Union, but Kamanin vows not to capitulate. He recaps the opposition of Malinovskiy, Smirnov, and Ustinov to manned spaceflight over the last five years. Korolev and Kamanin already wanted to build a second series of ten Vostok spacecraft in 1961, which could have been used to keep the lead in the race with America. Instead this was blocked year after year. The cosmonauts have been trained and ready for the fights aboard Vostok or Voskhod that would have kept the Soviet Union ahead in the space race; what has been lacking is the spacecraft to make the flights.

1965 December 6 - .

Gemini 7 - Wakeup Song: Hawaiian music - .
Flight: Gemini 7.
"Hawaiian music" began to be broadcast to them at 1:34 p.m..

VLF wave propagation studies. Investigation of the properties of the ionized layers of the atmosphere by observation of the propagation of the properties of very low frequency waves in the ionosphere. First registered by the United States in A/AC.105/INF.125. Orbit given there was 99 .9 min, 749 x 753 km x 75.9 deg, with note: France provided the payload for 1965-101A.

there was no way for the portable life support system and crewman to traverse from the LM front hatch to the CSM side hatch in zero-g docked operations, because there was no restraint system or tether attach points in the vicinity of the CSM hatch to permit the crewman to stabilize himself and work to open the hatch; and

there was no way to control the Apollo inner hatch (35-43 kilograms) to ensure that it would not inadvertently damage its seals, the spacecraft wiring, or the pressure bulkhead.

Kamanin is dumbfounded. The leadership has decided to accept Mishin's recommendations, scrap the 7K-VI project, and replace it with a Soyuz variant! Mishin is an egotist, but he is supported by highly-placed leaders - Ustinov, Smirnov, Pashkov, Serbin, Stroganov, Keldysh, and others. So everyone in the space program has to dance in the service of this 'engineer-performer', who is not a credible chief designer.

Afanasyev met with the Chief Designers - Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, V Kuznetsov, and Chelomei's Deputy, Eydis. Mishin was 'sick' and Chelomei had sent his deputy, as usual, to avoid having to meet Mishin. Afanasyev started with the demand that an Almaz flight take place within less than two years, before the end of the Eighth Five Year Plan. He asked Eydis to install an Igla passive docking system to permit docking with the station of the existing Soyuz 7K-OK as opposed to the planned 7K-S. If Chelomei's bureau could not meet this requirement, then the 'conspirator's' DOS project could be authorised in its place. Additional Details: here....

Skylab 2 - Wakeup Song: Silent Night - .
Flight: Skylab 2 .
"Silent Night" by Barbra Streisand; a message from the people of Germany followed by German Christmas songs. Santa Claus Day in Germany falls on this date..

The Ariane placed the Satmex 5 satellite into a 211km x 21516 km x 7.0 degree orbit from which the satellite was to use its on-board engine to reach geostationary orbit. Satmex 5 was operated by Satellites Mexicanos S.A. de C.V, which took over the Morelos constellation from Mexican Secretaria de Comunicaciones y Transportes. Satmex 5 replaced Morelos 2 and carried the XIPS ion engine station-keeping system. Positioned in geosynchronous orbit at 116 deg W in 1998-1999 As of 5 September 2001 located at 116.79 deg W drifting at 0.008 deg W per day. As of 2007 Mar 10 located at 116.81W drifting at 0.002W degrees per day.

On December 3 the Orbital Sciences L-1011 Stargazer took off from Vandenberg AFB Runway 30/12 carrying a Pegasus XL launch vehicle with the SWAS satellite aboard. It reached the drop box at 36.0N 123.0W over the Pacific, but due to a software-related problem the range ordered the launch scrubbed and the L-1011 returned to base. After a further delay due to weather, the L-1011 took off at 23:58 GMT on December 5 and SWAS reached orbit and separated from the third stage at 01:09 GMT. SWAS, the Sub-millimetre Wave Astronomy Satellite, had a 0.6m telescope with a 490 to 550 GHz sub-millimetre receiver and an acousto-optical spectrometer. SWAS was used to study the cooling of molecular cloud cores, the sites of star formation in our galaxy, by measuring lines from molecular oxygen and water. Air dropped in Point Arguello WADZ.

Though I have no longer a direct 'entry' on board of the Mir-space station, there is still a lot to report. Every day the orbit of the complex looses a few hundred meters and the station is loosing a little bit of air. Confirmation that Mir is still alive can be derived from the fact that during some passes every day the telemetry can be monitored via the 638, 166 and 165 mc bands. I did not yet find the key to decipher those rattles. Regretfully the famous World War-2 Enigma-code crackers of Bletchley Park near London cannot help any more. Good sources, which have insight in that what the telemetry has to report, told me that all is going reasonable well. The complex is still flying in free drift and slowly spinning around the X- and Y-axes with an angular speed of 0.15 degrees/sec. If needed the B.U.P.O. can be activated to control the movements of the complex with the use of steering rockets and the external thruster VDU. It is also possible to use the steering devices of the freighter Progress-M42 for that purpose. This freighter can also be used to correct the orbit of the complex. This might take place one of these days, even already today. At about 1.12.1999 the per/apogee were respectively 322.3 and 325.9KM. The data TsUP derived from telemetry about the thermoregulation, the humidity, the power supply (accumulator batteries loaded by some solar panels) and about the already mentioned attitude show no anomalies. The slow but gradual loss of air pressure still gives concern. On high level especially the head of RAKA, Koptev, uses this problem as an argument against the eventual prolongation of the Mir-exploitation.

Mir's fate in 2000 still unsure: In the field of the policy makers for Mir's future 2 huge organisations have totally opposite points of view. These organisations are the RAKA (so: the Russian NASA) and Mir's owner RKK Energiya. Recently RKK Energiya got support from the Duma. The Duma gave permission to use money earned from spaceflight activities and for which Russia is the rightful claimant, so no money from the public treasury. RKK Energiya is hoping for the American project to use an electrodynamic tether as a counter action to suppress the natural drag. To make this possible the project has to be realised by attaching the 7 KM long tether at the Kristall module during an EVA by cosmonauts.

Koptev, however, has another opinion. He states that every rouble which can be used for Russian spaceflight has to be invested in the Russian obligations for the International Space Station. He is responsible that Russia fulfils her promises in international co-operation. Russia's contribution to the ISS is the only way to survive as one of the greatest spaceflight nations in the world. In his opinion it is not realistic to exploit Mir for 1 or 2 years more and thus loosing influence in the development of ISS. He also warns for the dangers which an uncontrolled Mir-complex might mean for humanity. He emphasises that the mysterious leakage of air makes further exploitation irresponsible.

Reasonable reliable assessments based on information from good sources:

There is still hope, but the promised funding by the Duma is far from sure. In this respect there has not been a single officially confirmed action in that respect.

There are still tentative plans for the beginning of 2000, which would make it necessary to raise Mir's orbit by a Progress. Towards the end of January 2000 (perhaps on 24.01.2000) the tanker Progress-M1 will be launched to Mir. This tanker can be used to put the complex on the final destruction course into the atmosphere for decay over the designated area East of New Zealand.

The Russians hope to send Main Expedition 28 (Zalyotin and Kaleri) to Mir in April 2000. Definitely without the movie actor Steklov. This mission will last 2 months.

Today's launch of STS-122/Atlantis on Mission ISS-1E was postponed due to failure indications of two (of four) engine cut-off sensors in the Liquid Hydrogen tank during early-morning tanking operations.

The next liftoff opportunity is tomorrow, Friday, at 4:09pm EST.

Aboard the space station, FE-2 Dan Tani again accessed the SLEEP experiment (Sleep-Wake Actigraphy & Light Exposure during Spaceflight) software after wakeup and before breakfast, for data logging, completing questionnaire entries in the experiment's laptop session file on the HRF-1 laptop for later downlink. (To monitor the crewmember's sleep/wake patterns and light exposure, Dan wears a special Actiwatch device which measures the light levels encountered by him as well as his patterns of sleep and activity throughout the Expedition. The log entries are done within 15 minutes of final awakening for seven consecutive days, as part of the crew's discretionary 'job jar' task list.) Additional Details: here....

1.5U cubesat from the Montana Space Grant Consortium to study electron microbursts in the magnetosphere. The Centaur AV-042 upper stage, after deploying the main payload, made two orbit lowering burns to a 467 x 883 km x 120.5 deg orbit. Attached to AV-042 was GEMSAT, the second NPSCuL cubesat launcher, which ejected 12 cubesats between around 10:22 and 10:38 GMT.

United Launch Alliance launched Atlas V flight AV-061 carrying the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship mission. Following the Antares failure in the prior year, Cygnus payloads were temporarily moved to Atlas. The OA-4 Cygnus, called 'SS Deke Slayton II', was the first Cygnus with the enhanced (stretched) EPCM pressurized cargo module, and the first with a service module carrying the circular UltraFlex solar arrays originally designed for NASA's Orion. This was the first time an Atlas launched a payload towards the ISS. The AV-061 Centaur reached a 234 x 237 km orbit at 2203 UTC, released Cygnus 3 min later, and performed a 10s deorbit burn at 2232 UTC for disposal of the Centaur in the ocean south of Australia at about 132E 49S. The Deke Slayton II reached the ISS on Dec 9, with SSRMS grapple at 1119 UTC and berthing on Harmony at 1426 UTC. Aboard the Cygnus were the small NovaWurks SIMPL satellite, 12 Flock 2e cubesats from Planet Labs, and the CADRE, STMSat-1, MinXSS-1, Nodes 1 and Nodes 2 cubesats. Mass of ISS after the OA-4 arrival was 418 metric tons. The Canadarm-2 unberthed the Cygnus OA-4 cargo ship, SS Deke Slayton II, from the Unity node on Feb 19 at 1040 UTC and released it into orbit at about 1227 UTC. The Cygnus was deorbited over the S Pacific at about 1600 UTC Feb 20.